Trial of #ISIS woman Omaima Abdi, whose phone content I found in Syria, ends today. The verdict is expected this morning. The trial started after I broke the story.
This is the court building in Hamburg where it's all happening today.
4/ #BREAK After I found the content of her phone in Syria, German-Tunisian woman Omaima Abdi is sentenced today by a Hamburg court to 3 years 6 months in jail for joining #ISIS in Syria.
Not a harsh sentence but still historic since evidence was found by a journalist.
1/ ISIS acted harshly against its enemies. But 400 ISIS docs now show that ISIS also mistreated its own citizens &fighters. Corruption &violence were widespread. Today, @CTCWP releases those 400 docs. I was allowed to preview them. Here my @akhbar story:
2/ The almost 400 ISIS docs are mostly messages of citizens to ISIS officials complaining about other ISIS officials.
Complaints of illegal arrests, beatings, ISIS soldiers committing theft, torture...
Complaints are from 2015 - 2017, when ISIS caliphate consisted of large parts of Syria & Iraq. Many complaints are addressed to the ISIS wali of Raqqah. Some files are from Iraq or Yemen.
3/ These documents were found by the U.S. army in Syria and Iraq. Today, @CTCWP publishes these docs. I was allowed to preview the documents for @akhbar exclusively.
1/ On June 16, @CENTCOM conducted airstrike in Syria killing an ISIS official. Btwn all the news from Ukraine & Gaza, it hardly got any attention. Even location of strike wasn't known. That got me interested. For @akhbar I started investigating. Thread.👇 akhb.ar/N79p2
2/ First, I started contacting my sources in Syria. Who heard of an airstrike that killed one man on Sunday 16, the day before Eid? And if yes, where did it happen? And was this indeed the same strike that the Americans conducted?
3/ Sources told me that somebody was killed by an airstrike nearby Afrin. Then, I spoke to @farhad_shami, head of the media center of the SDF. He confirmed it too. “We had knowledge of the [recent] operation,” said Shami. “The movements of the target were monitored. Especially during the last two days before the operation. He was moving around Al Bab, Mare’ and finally Afrin.”
1/ The last hours of a killed ISIS leader's life looked like a Hollywood movie. Not only did he escape twice, also villagers tell @akhbar US forces killed 2rebels who had nothing to do with ISIS.
2/ As the story is published in Arabic on the website of my company @akhbar, I will post the main points in English in this thread. Of course, you can also open the Arabic page and use google Translate. tinyurl.com/2t3yccaa
3/ The US raid took place last Monday around 0130 AM near Jarablus. I sent 2 sources to the area. They spoke to witnesses; neighbors, relatives &villagers. They also exclusively visited the targeted house where the ISIS leader secretly lived. This is a drone shot of that house:
1/ Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate tells @akhbar: “Yes, I regret that I ever said during 1979 Revolution: Long live Khomeini.” Watch my exclusive interview with Dr. Shirin Ebadi on current uprising in Iran. Powerful words. I'll tweet some parts out.
2/ Dr. Ebadi tells me: “We admit that [1979 protests] were a mistake when we see what's happening 2day in Iran. (...) those who were in jail say torture now is worse than during prev regime [of Shah]. Agents of current regime more bloodthirsty & violent.”
3/ I asked Dr. Ebadi about Iran's nuclear program. "The moment a democratic government is established in Iran, work on nuclear program will stop," she said. "It has cost Iran so much. (…) nuclear program isolates Iran from region & from world.” @akhbar
1/ Interesting. @akhbar interviewed Omar bin Laden, son of Osama bin Laden. His father took him as a child to Afghanistan. Now he +wife live in Normandy, France. “French landscape helps me to relax,” he says, “I started painting &I'm enjoying it a lot.”
2/ Omar bin Laden explains he paints the mountains of Afghanistan in red & black. “I lived there for almost a year," he says, "Big mountains, tough terrain. Red represents the suffering, pain & blood. Black, the darkness, no electricity, height & depth of the mountains.”
3/ “End of my period with my father was in Tora Bora,” Omar bin Laden continues, “there was lots of bombing, killing, many lives were lost. Whether they were innocent or not, fighters &non-fighters, but I was effected by these bloody scenes. That's why I paint these mountains.”
1/ Eight yrs ago ISIS launched a terror campaign against Iraq's Yazidis. Leila was enslaved by ISIS. Today she still lives in a camp. “Most ISIS women live better than me,” she tells me on my show on @akhbar, “Many came back to Iraq & some even to Europe.”
2/ ISIS terror started in August 2014. Leila now is 28 yrs old. She's from Sinjar, heart land of Iraq's Yazidis. She was 20 when ISIS attacked. She was kidnapped by ISIS &enslaved for 5 years. In 2019 she escaped. 10 family members still missing among them her father & brothers.
3/ Leila says: "Years passed & I still don't know what happened to my family! Someone should do something. We all want bodies of our martyrs back or if they're alive we want news about them. They keep on saying, be patient. We have no patience anymore.”